


Edythe Cullen, Virtuoso

by gh0stb0y



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/F, Mutual Pining, Oneshot, but also a mixing of life & death and canon characters, secret santa gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 05:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17115023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gh0stb0y/pseuds/gh0stb0y
Summary: Bella Swan inspires Edythe Cullen and she doesn't know what to do about it.





	Edythe Cullen, Virtuoso

**Author's Note:**

  * For [edwardbottoms](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=edwardbottoms).



> a short edythe/bella oneshot written for tumblr user @edwardbottoms for the 2018 twilight secret gift exchange!
> 
> this was my first time writing edythe and i was kind of thrown off by it? (i don't know whether i consider her to just be female edward or her own character yet.) regardless, i love writing about ed and rose's sibling dynamic, so i sprinkled in a bit of royal here too

            A peaceful melody that builds and swells like a flowing river, grand yet smooth, and is, most importantly, beautiful. The music transports the listener to another place, a place of mystery and magic, and of love. Resounding love is felt in every second of this composition. Effortlessly.

            Royal removes his headphones, smiling.

            “Edythe Cullen, virtuoso,” he says as he runs his fingers through his long, blonde locks, mussing his hair so that it falls just perfectly. “I’m glad to see you weren’t recording my playing for some half-thought-out pet project. This is gorgeous. Pray tell, where did you get the orchestra?”

            “Amazing what technology does these days,” says Edythe.

            “Explains why it sounds slightly lifeless. Much like you.”

            “And you.”

            Royal laughs. He claps his sister on the back and rises from his seat on Edythe’s futon.

            “All for some silly human girl.”

            “She’s not silly,” says Edythe, closing her laptop.

            “No, you’re right. You’re the silly one. I hope you aren’t getting too attached.”

            Edythe bites her lip and looks outside. Rain, as usual. Royal notices the lack of response and rolls his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets.

            “I hope she likes it, at least,” he mumbles as he leaves the room.

            “Me too,” Edythe says quietly, watching raindrops roll down the glass.

**-X-**

            During lunch, Edythe often slips away to the school auditorium, to the grand piano they store backstage. Playing the piano is a better use of her time than sitting in the back corner of the cafeteria with her siblings, pretending to eat. Of course, she was eventually discovered by the choir teacher, who agreed to let her keep using the piano as long as she would occasionally offer her services as an accompanist during concerts. Edythe, not getting many chances to flaunt her skills, saw this as a win-win situation.

            Today, however, she is not alone—Edythe has invited Bella Swan to join her in her secret musical escapades. She can’t decide what to do about this curiously alluring human girl. Ignore her? Avoid her? Or let herself keep falling head over heels for her? Whatever she did, it would probably be dangerous, either for herself or for sweet, sweet Bella.

            Bella slips into the auditorium through one of the backstage doors, coming from her art class, sketchbook in hand.

            “Draw anything particularly nice today?” Edythe asks, smirking. She’s adopted a rather playful attitude with Bella, who probably doesn’t know what to make of her due to her demeanor.

            “Eh, not really. We had to sketch this boring still life.”

Bella opens up the sketchbook, showing Edythe the most recent page. As she says, it’s a simple still life, some vases with flowers surrounding by random objects. Bella hands her the sketchbook and she flips back to the earlier pages. Bella is a pretty good artist by Edythe’s standards—not spectacular, but good, and passionate at that. That’s what matters, the passion behind the work. The intent. Why was this made? Did the creator care about it?

Thus, Bella still life sketches are okay, but subpar. Who cares about drawing a still life? Especially one in an intermediate high school art class. Edythe wouldn’t. Then again, she wasn’t much of an artist. That was Archie’s territory.

No, Edythe was the family’s musical virtuoso. She could play anything you handed her, and if she couldn’t she would learn how to in a day or less. She was a lyricist, a composer, a producer, a performer. A one-woman band.

Edythe laid Bella’s sketchbook atop the piano and let her fingers rest on the piano keys, feeling out a song. She started slow, imagining where this foray into the musical world would go, then picked up the pace as she understood what she was doing, what she was going for. Bella watched, entranced as Edythe’s slender fingers danced across the ivories at speeds she could never hope to achieve. Edythe’s creative spurt ran abruptly short, though, as she got stuck on one particular strand of notes and couldn’t figure out where to take it, repeating the same part over and over until she sighed and let her fingers press out a discordant chord.

“Was that something you made up?” Bella asked, leaning against the piano.

“Yeah. Just now, actually.”

“Woah! That’s awesome. Like, you’re super talented.”

“I could say the same about you,” says Edythe, eyes resting on Bella’s sketchbook, which she had left open on a striking portrait of her father, Charlie. She had perfectly captured his likeness, right down to the mustache.

“Aw, dude, I’m not that great,” says Bella, picking up the sketchbook and closing it.

“Don’t undersell yourself. Anything you create with passion, that you put real effort into, will turn out great.”

“You can say that because you can bang out a song like that on the piano in two seconds like it’s nothing.”

“I can’t if I’m not feeling it. I can’t just make music happen with no inspiration.”

“Well, what inspires you?”

_You_ , Edythe thinks, though she doesn’t say it.

And there are many other things that inspire Edythe. The wind in the trees, the way the sun sets and disappears into the ocean, the pitter-patter of raindrops on her window. Her family, and her family’s many great loves. Her siblings and their individual talents. Not many things are as pleasing to the ear as Royal playing the violin. Edythe has composed several sonatas for her brother.

“A lot of stuff,” she responds vaguely. She isn’t sure how to articulate her creative muses to Bella just yet. There’s so much that Bella doesn’t know about her, and that she doesn’t know about Bella.

“Hmm.”

Bella reopens her sketchbook to a blank page and starts doodling something. Edythe puts her hands back to the keys, playing a few notes of the song she had been working on Royal with. The lullaby, she calls it, though it is a bit too energetic at times to bear the title (the passion of love can inspire a musician to go further than they intend). At the very least, it is a relaxing piece.

Though Edythe only plays a fraction of the tune, it catches Bella’s attention. She looks up from her drawing.

“What was that one?”

“Oh, it’s something I’ve been working on. Well, I just finished working on it, actually. I have a recording if you want to hear it,” Edythe says, reaching into her backpack for her laptop.

“Please,” says Bella. She smiles as she goes back to work with her pencil, scratching out something Edythe can’t see on the paper.

Edythe pulls up the file and turns up her laptop’s volume as loud as it will go. She knows it would sound better through headphones, but she’s too eager to have Bella hear it to even consider asking her to put them on.

The lullaby begins to play, the soothing melody filling the empty space around them. Edythe on the piano, Royal on the violin, accompanied by several digitally made instruments. Edythe closes her eyes and nods her head to the rhythm, then lets herself play along with the recording. Bella also lets herself get lost in the music, tapping her foot again the floor.

“This is _amazing_. What did I tell you? You’re like some kind of musical god.”

If Edythe could blush, she would. “It’s…” She wants to say that it’s nothing, but she can’t bring herself to do that; she can’t devalue this masterpiece. “I… worked really hard on it. Thanks.”

“Did you play all the instruments?”

“Ah, no. Some of them are digital, and then my brother, Royal, played the violin.”

“Of course he’s good at the violin. Really, no one should be allowed to be as gorgeous as him. Is he perfect at everything?”

“Well, he’s kind of an asshole sometimes,” Edythe says, chuckling. “I guess that’s his one big flaw.”

“How damning.”

The recording fades out and comes to an end. Edythe quickly closes her laptop before Bella can see her name in the title of the file.

“Did you like it?” she asks.

“Did I like it? Jesus, dude, I loved it. How do you come up with things like that? It was beautiful. Like, it made me feel emotional. Music doesn’t often do that.”

Edythe’s cold heart swells. She can’t believe that Bella likes her composition this much. Hearing those words come out of her mouth means the world to her.

“I just… got inspired,” she says, staring at Bella.

It’s something in her smile. The curve of her jaw. Her warm, brown eyes. The way she tucks loose strands of hair behind her ear. How she occasionally bites her lip when she concentrates on a drawing. The way she moves, the way she laughs, the way she lives and breathes. Edythe is enchanted by all of it. She loves her.

“Well, maybe I just got a little inspired too,” says Bella as she puts the finishing touches on her sketch. When she lifts up her sketchbook, Edythe sees herself, sitting over the piano, her eyes closed as she plays. Much like the portrait of Charlie, it’s a flawless recreation of reality. “You make a good model. It’s your bone structure. Very unique. And the way your hair falls. Dare I say it’s fun to draw.”

“Th-thanks.”

Bella taps the eraser of her pencil against the sketchbook. “You know, I have another portrait assignment for class coming up. It’s gotta be more detailed this time. Would you… mind sitting for it?”

Edythe can see the slight flush on Bella’s cheeks and hear the uptick in her pulse. She’s nervous, asking this. For whatever reason, Edythe feels nervous too.

“Uh, sure. I’d be glad to.”

Bella seems relieved. “Oh, cool. Thanks. I’ll, uh, text you about it.”

As soon as she says that, the bell rings, ending their brief sanctuary from the rigors of high school. They say their goodbyes and go separate ways, knowing that they’ll end the day in biology together.

Edythe leaves the auditorium with a pep in her step. First loves are always so magical.

**-X-**

            “Did she like it?” Royal asks, leaning in through Edythe’s doorway.

            Edythe looks up at him. “Yeah. She really, really liked it.”

            “Well, I’m glad. I still think talking to her is a terrible idea and all, but I’m glad. It’s… nice to see you happy for a change,” he says, his voice low.

            “I know what you think—” Royal laughs. “—but, god, Roy, it’s really something else. I’ve never felt like this before. I didn’t know I was capable of feeling this way. If I could compare it to anything, I’d say it’s like how you feel about El, or how Archie feels about Jessie, or… even how Carine feels about Esme.”

            Royal’s smile falls just a bit, his expression growing serious.

            “She’s a human, Edy. It won’t work out. You know what Archie saw.”

            Edythe turns her head, looking out the window once more. This time, it’s not raining, but dark clouds loom overhead, threatening a storm.

            “I know. I know.”

            Royal knows that he’s killed her good mood, so he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks off down the hall to his own room. He likes to antagonize his sister. He also wants her to be happy, but, at the same time, he can’t let her do this. He can’t let her fall in love with some human girl. He can’t let Edythe threaten their family’s safety, and, most importantly, he can’t let some poor human be burdened with this life, with their curse. Royal might not have Archie’s foresight, but, somehow, he knows that Edythe is going to do something reckless no matter what he tells him.

            Miles away, Bella Swan sits alone in her bedroom, typing out a text to Edythe to ask her when she’s free to model for her, and if she can have an mp3 of that song she played for her.


End file.
